ELEVEN-TWENTY/TWO-THOUSAND-NINE

My sister turned 40 today.

Alexis.

Forty.

My! How Time doeth fly! Right? Heck.

Heck, I remember being 10 and Alexis being 14, at the house on Smith. Even at that age, she was showing brilliant flashes of artistic brilliance. (I know. "Brilliant" in its forms, twice. Read on.)

Alexis has always been an artist. Poetry, painting, colored-penciled drawings, prose, short stories, sculpture, artistry of musical instruments--she can pick up an instrument and make sense out of it. Piano, dulcemer, guitar, drums....

So. She turned 40 today. It is her birthday.

I say to her, "Happy birthday!" And I grin like the Cheshire Cat. Because I feel that way. I love the girl. She is an inspiration to me. She truly is. Is.

We have not always seen eye-to-eye and I think I know the reason: We are far too similar in many aspects of our personalities.

But, the fact remains that I love her and I miss her--miss her. She lives in Duluth-fucking-Minnesota, a fourteen-hour drive away. That's far. I am without vacation daze at work....

***

Meagan intervenes (and I type)....

For Alexis's birthday, Meeg came up with the idea of 40 things (for the years accumulated)--randomly chosen from the dictionary, in alphabetical order--that we'd like to give her for her 40th birthday.

And it so goes:

We give her 40 adorable anoles.

We give her 39 blue blankets.

We give her 38 cute cat calanders.

We give her 37 doozies.

We give her 36 ethos...um. Um.

We give her 35 forklifts. Damn. Much work to do, huh?

We give her 34 germy gerbils. (Annie and Nikki.)

We give her 33 heterosexuals. (Back down, Sean.) ;-)

We give her 32 insomniatic nights. Sorry. That's the way the page unfolded.

We give her 31 jowls.

We give her 30 Karmas. (Peace, my sister.)

We give her 29 lifeboats.

We give her 28 malamutes. (You wanted a dog, right?)

We give her 27 Norsemen. (Sean?! Back off, man! It's just an alphabetic exercise.)

We give her 26 obsidian rocks.

We give her 25 precious pandas. (And China is pisssssssed.)

We give her 24 Quakers. (Enjoy your oatmeal, sis.) =0)

We give her 23 rest areas.

We give her 22 sitars. (Be the Beatles, uh?)

We give her 21 tender tendrils.

We give her 20 umbilical cords.

We give her 19 Vermeers. (He's a famous Dutch painter. She got 19 of his works for her life-changing 40th birthday!)

We give her 18 weathercocks. (Whence does the wind blow?)

We give her 17 xenophobes.

We give her 16 Yuppies. (And she will hate that gift.)

We give her 15 zoologists.

---

[We start back at "A" for the remainder of the 14 years.]

We give her 14 apostles. (Meagan and I will round the 12 out to 14.)

We give her 13 bibs. (Red Lobstah, anyone?)

We give her 12 comedians.

We give her 11 deja vus.

We give her 10 entertaining entrepreneurs.

We give her 09 forests.

We give her 08 guest workers, a foreigner permitted to work in a country on a temporary basis.

We give her 07 howitzers. (Aim carefully. Please?)

We give her 06 ideals.

We give her 05 jackals. (Sorry.)

We give her 04 Korean Krishnas.

We give her 03 lobotomies.

We give her 02 megaliths. (Think...Stonehenge.)

We give her 01 neophyte. (Meegie says, "Have fun with that!")

And, for zero, we give her the Love of Language; we give her the Mastery of Mastication.

Chew on, dear sis, chew on.

Love you,

Adam and Meegie. =0)

THANKSGIVING? LET'S...

Hey, it's only November 12th, but Thanksgiving is coming up soon; it's just around the proverbial corner. I figured that I would--in no particualr order--write about some things for which I am thankful.

* I should word this one carefully (one never knows who is reading) but I am thankful that, sometimes, a split-second decision grants one documentation in the stead of a boot to the ass, out the door.

* I am thankful for my immediate family, my Mom and my Gramma and my sisters and my late Dad, and my "other" family, my Meegie and her/our Naomi--from all, love does show and flow and Grow.

* I am thankful for my dogs--they're always there for me; and it is up to me to reciprocate.

* I am thankful for my job. In this economy..? I shan't even finish that thought, lest it germinate, come to fruition. Thankful for a good wage and--generally--good co-workers. Even though I am not the best at, well, anything at that job, I still have it, and it pays a good wage, and I actually find it stimulating, sometimes.

* I am thankful for my strong body. I mean, seriously, the shit I have put it through? And the heart still ticks? And the lungs still fill? And the bwane still works? That says something about Divine Engineering, doesn't it? I am kind of at a loss to explain how this is. But, actually, maybe I already have--D.E.: Divine Engineering. I am 36 years old. 36.76666666, to be somewhat-exact. This ain't a kid's body, anymore. (It may be a kid's mind, but I digress.) God makes many bodies. Tall, short, fat, thin.... Doomed to die young, doomed to die at age 93. I am only 36 years old--perhaps I should not count the farm fowl before they crack through their egg--but I feel thankful that, until this point at least, God has made me a Seiko--I take a licking and keep on ticking.

* I am thankful for the Internet. Because, that way? I can spew, from my fingertips, misplaced hubris.

* I am thankful for sports.

* I am thankful that the world does not have to revolve around liquor, spirits, or beers. The world is a much bigger place, keemie-sabo. (Spelled wrong, on purpose, kemo sabe means "wet bush" in some other language--perhaps Navajo?)

* I am thankful that my brain still has the capacity for Denial. (See above.)

* I am thankful that many people love their cats. I, however, am not one of those people. Cats? Never been a fanatic. But...cats can be cute.

* I am thankful that my car still runs, though through shoddy maintainence.

* I am thankful that my mother instilled in me the love of the Creative and that my dad instilled in me the love of the Ethic of Work.

* I am thankful that I was granted a gift from God to love words. They've lulled me to sleep, they've been exclamations of pain and worth and love and greed and hurt and acceptance and unabashed Hope.... Words are Lifeblood, sometimes. And I thank God that I love them and understand them and use them as I can.

* I am thankful that...the List could go on and on and on.

Thanks.

MEEGIE, MY MASTER MECHANIC

So...here was the situation: my 2002 Ford Focus's left headlamp had burned out. Yesterday, I walked out the door, after work, armed with a screwdriver, ready to make things right...make things...illuminated.

Now, the catch.

You either have to be a rocket scientist (or Meagan) to change the damned lightbulb. I know, I know...how tough could it be? Well.

Like I said, yesterday, I walked out of my door, armed with a screwy, thinking--obviously!--that to change a lightbulb is child's play.

The 2002 Ford Focus is a bitch when it comes to changing bulbs. First of all, it isn't the old-skool way of lighting one's way. You have to pull off a "weather protective" shield--easy--but then you have to, basically, free the burned-out bulb from its shackles by touch alone. It is so inconveniently-situated, it is ridiculous. It's basically upside-down and blind lightbulb-changing.

Some fools on the Internet suggested using a mirror. Hum.

(They were right.)

But I couldn't hack it. I tried (briefly) and then I said fuggit, I'll take it to the Ford dealership, where they would charge me from between $50 and $70 to "get 'er done."

I happened to mention to Meegie that my plan was such, and she blew a gasket.

"Fuck that!" she ejaculated. "No, no way. Uh-uh. That's bullshit."

I said, "But, Meagan, I can't do it. I'll just fuck it up."

"Then I'll do it," she said. And she got off the couch and slipped into her slippers and lit out the door.

I sat there, looking blankly at the front window, thinking to myself, If she does it, again, I may have to become a eunuch. You see, earlier, before I had brought up the imminent rape of myself by the Ford dealership, I had been running water for the dishes. The dishes! And, later, I will pop Ping-Pong balls....

And, when I say, "If she does it again..." it means that she is very very very good at figuring things out. I? I tend to say fuggit and meekly hand my money to the greasemonkeys. Or the geeks. Or the Men-Who-Can-Do-It-All.

Fast-forward.

Meagan took a mirror and a flashlight out to the car. I walked out a minute later to find her fingering the lightbulb encasement.

"It's got a clasp," she said. "I just have to figure out how to unlatch it."

I mentally shook my head. No fucking way. It's impossible. It's bullshit, is what it is. Aloud, I said, "So, how do you want me to hold the flashlight?"

"Wait a minute," she said. "I think I know how to do this."

You have a snowball's chance in Hades of doing this, I thought. I did not think she could do it...again.

Long story.

Short.

She did it. She figured out the Hell-Clasp and she extracted the dead bulb and she figured out how to install the new one and connect it to the wires, and--then!--she figured out how to re-clasp the motherfucking worst idea for a car headlight bulb ever.

(She is reading over my shoulder. She wants me to let y'all know that I had mentioned that, maybe, we should get the bulb in its place before she hooked up the wires. I was just thinking, hell, the clasp is the hardest part. We need no distractions, like wires.)

Yeah.

I'm a boob. I was completely ready to hand $50 to $70 over to Ford mechanics who'd probably have snickered at their rotund snookering of my dumb ass. But! Because of my love, Meegie, I have not to pay for a...listen now...a lightbulb change.

I'm here. I have a dish towel over my shoulder. I am washing dirty dishes. Perhaps, later, I will show you my....